Fresh Snow

(C) 2015 Dale DiMauro

While Boston received upwards of three feet of snow yesterday, we here in Brattleboro Vt, or at least at our house, have 6-9" of freshly blown white powder. Our snowblower sliced right through it, creating nice little channels with crisp edges and fresh lumps. 

After a snowstorm I like to walk through our neighborhood or nearby woods and take in the dramatic changes in the landscape. I try to notice the windswept patterns of snow, the appearance of birds and the glow of light in the atmosphere.

This watercolor(9" x 12") is of a house in my neighborhood with mint colored siding contrasted with the forest green trim and fine touches of understated architectural detail. This new winter storm seemed to bring a fresh clarity to the winter scene from the contours of snow hanging over the roof, to the warmth in the windows to the cool shadows and colors of the exterior.

I thought of painting this house without the neighboring ones to give it a stronger focal point while offering a greater atmospheric affect. What would you have done differently?

Giant Winter Storm Coming!

(C) 2015 Dale DiMauro

With reports of a giant winter storm coming our way I thought it was timely to upload a watercolor I did last year, when we had better snow accumulations and fewer ice storms. Personally, for this time of year, I love the landscape shrouded in drifts of powder. Little could inspire me more, here in Vermont, particularly with the late afternoon sun fading after the cloud cover finally breaks away. 

This house in my neighborhood is completely transformed with snow. The warmth of the house color pushes forward against the cool of the sky, snow and shadows. Driving around Windham County earlier in the day, everywhere I went I saw cobalt blue shadows, which is the primary color used in developing the massing of snow, with ultramarine blue and raw umber in the sunny areas. The deciduous tree silhouettes brings a sense of warmth and depth to the house and landscape. I was using phthalo blue exclusively for my skies but have since evolved to also using cerulean and indanthrene blues, among others.

This watercolor is relatively small (9" x 12"), so one could consider it a study. I have started and am well along on a full sheet version (22" x 30").

A Summer Evening in Maine

(C) 2015 Dale DiMauro

This watercolor reminds me of last summer on Mount Desert. There is a sand bar to Bar Island which disappears as the tide comes in and reappears when it goes out. There are spectacular sunsets from this vantage point, but if you don't time it right, you can get stuck on the island until the next tide goes out. If you park your car out here, it may be under water when you return.

People walk to this island on a spit of land with water lapping over their ankles while creating fascinating and unending patterns across the surface. It is the perfect spot to people watch and engage in conversations with travelers as they take photographs of everything imaginable. People are looking out, across the bay, at birds, at passing boats and down through the transparent lapping water.

This watercolor (12" x 16") was done on an Arches 140 lb block. I love that the focal point is the figure looking down at the disappearing sand spit and the subsequent patterns and reflections of water. The figure below the horizon strengthens the dramatic sky and scale of the bay. For me water can be tricky to paint. I don't want to overwork it, so as to keep it fresh. There are so many layers of rich color and value in the water. It is a challenge to figure out where to start and where to end.

Theodore Roosevelt

(C) 2015 Dale DiMauro

Recently, I began reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's sizable book, The Bully Pulpit which I received for Christmas in 2013. In essence, as its subtitle states, it parallels the work of Presidents Roosevelt, Taft and the Golden Age of Journalism. In the process of reading this book and beginning to become intertwined in their lives, I became interested in painting each of the two Presidents.

The above watercolor (7" x 10") of Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, was done on an Arches watercolor block. The image was derived from the photograph of him on the cover of the book that cropped off the top of his head. It follows a pencil drawing I did, which I have included below. At this scale it is challenging to get into much detail, however I do think it characterizes many of his known traits. 

The eyeglasses in particular, are challenging as they often can be. The rimless lenses both are transparent and offer defined edges on areas of his face. Each layer of subsequent watercolor washes over the face further diminishes the presence of his glasses which led me to painting greater values in the eye socket areas to make the lens project forward.

(C) 2015 Dale DiMauro

Birds in flight

(C) 2015 Dale DiMauro

I have been interested in putting birds in my watercolors for some time, at least when appropiate. For me they add movement and give a sense of scale. The two birds to the right in the above picture are red-tailed hawks, and the bird in the upper left is a ruffled grouse or at least intended to be. Both are found in our area, here in southern Vermont.

This is just a little sketch of a watercolor, not intended to be a finished painting, as is evident from the bird on the lower left, perched on a branch suspended in the middle of the air.  Off to the left of him (not visible in the photo) I have another fellow sitting on a piece of barbed wire.

It is easy to over do it by adding too much detail for the scale of the bird. I have learned it is important to get the bird's torso just right and then give color variation in the wings to suggest the reflection of light. Birds need to be just above the tree line or they get lost in the picture. I use Ogden Pleissner and Carol Evans, both successful watercolor painters, for inspiration.

Pencil pictures

(C) 2015 Dale DiMauro

I love to draw in pen or pencil when I can. I consider it my dry media while watercolor is my wet media. I enjoy sketching the landscape outside in good weather and have even gone to swimming holes on hot days here in Vermont, taken a dip and painted little watercolors.

Many years ago I started drawing faces and figures while the news was on in the winter. Sometimes I draw a face in some hockey magazine or alumni magazine sitting on our kitchen table. In the process I have picked up knowledge on the contours and proportions of the face, in particular the eyes, nose and mouth. 

The above drawing I did at our kitchen table using an HB pencil found in a local art or office supply store. I do not prefer a yellow Ticonderoga pencil because the point breaks too easily and often while the lead can be scratchy and smear easily. I prefer to use a kneaded eraser, if I use any at all, but often I don't bring one with me. I draw in a sketchbook, which has lighter weight paper or in this case a Strathmore spiral-case drawing pad with 80lb heavy weight paper. This drawing is 11" x 14".

I have drawn from live models, which I find challenging yet rewarding. You have to draw quickly while communicating and in some situations entertaining the model and adjust to quickly changing light.

I do the layout for my watercolors in pencil as well and sometimes draw in areas which are unclear as the painting progresses.

Winter is back!

(C) 2015 Dale DiMauro

With dangerously low temperatures returning, with a vengeance, I must add, this little watercolor reminds me of the Vermont winter. It has the stark silhouette of hardwood trees, the feel of long winter shadows and the cool blue snow in the foreground with the accumulating frost and thaw cycles. I must add the late afternoon sun does not warm it up much.

With the forecast in Brattleboro, Vermont, expected to reach a low of thirteen below tonight, I figured this watercolor I did over a year ago expresses all of that. While it is small(9" x 12") it has great impact in feel of temperature extremes. Even the evergreen in front has a foreboding quality. It also has that rural half-kept up quality. Years of weathering cold, snow, rain etc., have given it character you can't create. The occupants may have given up on gutters years ago, the stairs do not appear to have been shoveled in a while or they simply gave up on using the front entrance altogether.

What I do like about painting winter scenes is the opportunity to use many different kinds of blue pigments. Blue is the most used color on my palette. The snow is a variation on cobalt and ultramarine blue, while the sky in this case is largely phthalocyanine blue.

Retreat Fields

(C) 2015 Dale DiMauro

This little watercolor(9" x 12") is of a field not far from our house, in Brattleboro, Vermont. I was on a late afternoon walk and particularly like the light at that time of day, at this time of the year. It was a late December day, so you would have thought it would have looked more like winter, with ample snow, but not in this case. It took less than two hours to complete this painting. I like the freshness and how the warm and cool colors portray the scene. It was painted much more watery and looser than others I have done. It seems to me a timeless and classic subject. What are your impressions?

John Singer Sargent

(C) 2014 Photograph Dale DiMauro

During this holiday period I have been reading a biography of John Singer Sargent by Stanley Olson (John Singer Sargent: His Portrait). I have all too often found big tomes on Sargent with lavish photographs of his work but wanted to read just a basic biography and this covers it.

After a brief trip to Boston earlier this week with relatives, the presence of Sargent seemed to increase in our lives. The August St. Gaudens historical site, dedicated to a Sargent colleague is not far from us here in Vermont. In addition, ancestors of my wife posed for Sargent in Boston and were related to Isabella Stewart Gardner.

The author emphasizes how Sargent escaped the civil war and reconstruction by living overseas with his family. In his life he painted some six hundred portraits while producing another 2,500 pictures in oil and watercolor. He became famous by the time he was twenty-five and went on to paint murals in addition to his portraits. The above charcoal drawing, one of some five hundred he produced in his life, is of Pierre du Pont of Longwood Gardens, one of the most spectacular estates turned into public places in America. I was taken by the charcoal portrait several years ago when we visited the garden while visiting relatives.

I saw his watercolors at the Museum of Fine Arts in a recent exhibition(in collaboration with the Brooklyn Museum) and was struck by his direct use of the medium. He truly recorded what he saw with precision yet didn't go back and fuss with any prior doings.

SOLD

(C) 2014 Dale DiMauro

This little painting (7"x 10") of a northern Vermont barn recently sold. It is winter after all even though at times it seems like we are in another season altogether!


On that note I want to wish you all a very happy New Year!

Are you ready for winter?

(C) 2014 Dale DiMauro

This is a picture I started very recently, drawn from inspiration from a trip my wife and I took down into Massachusetts, to have her car looked at. Following an early winter storm, the clouds parted, bringing out the sun, while illustrating the fresh snow with its well defined shadows.

To me the composition is strengthened with a lack of trees or other landscape elements in the foreground creating an eerie presence, reminiscent of a Hopper-like painting. There is human presence but no residents are to be found. It dramatizes the time of year when there can be great isolation, and reminds us how a winter storm can suddenly alter our world.

I work on many watercolors at a time, at various scales and states of completion and will post the finished product for your impressions.

Unlike some other artists, I prefer to include electrical and telephone lines in my paintings of houses.  I would be interested to know whether this appeals to other viewers as it does to me. 

My Palette

(C) 2014 Dale DiMauro

This is my well used watercolor palette. It is relatively small as far as modern palettes go even though it has 24 paint wells. It is convenient because it folds up to half its size for transport yet has multiple, large mixing areas. I only clean it if mold forms in a well which is the only place it has occurred. With water based wells it is bound to happen if you do not let it dry out periodically. With the heat on in the winter it is really not an issue. I like to leave the remnants of previous mixes because they provide memories of past paintings and can be used in the future to contribute to richer combinations.

I more or less arrange warm colors on the left with the cool colors on the right. I have learned by painting in watercolor that a cool color or combination can not only give you 'temperature' but can make an object or scene recede into the distance. Conversely, adding a warm color or combination can bring an object or landscape come forward which is important to know. 

I use many blues in my my paintings, however, I prefer ultramarine and cobalt blue. I also use cerulean, prussian and phthalo blue. Recently, I have bugun almost exclusively mixing my greens instead of using them out of the tube. Lately, my favorite green is a rich mixture of aureolin and prussian blue.

I started off by mixing darks from paynes gray and then used sepia but have evolved to mixing cadmium red with ultramarine blue which seems to offer a greater range of darks.

I put brushes in the above photograph to give a sense of scale to my palette.

Ogden Pleissner's Woodcock Cover

(C) 2014 Dale DiMauro

This is my version of Ogden Pleissner's watercolor painting called Woodcock Cover. Last spring I wanted to paint a full sheet (22" x 30') watercolor with a classic Vermont scene. I take daily walks in the winter through nearby preservation land called the Brattleboro Retreat where there are woodlands, open fields, and farmland full of many of the landscape characteristics visible in Pleissner's paintings. Central to the contemporary experience are people walking their dogs. 

Ogden Pleissner was a well established and well known artist who was thought to have painted over seven thousand paintings in watercolor and oil, both large and small. Before his passing in 1983 he donated over 500 watercolors, oils, and sketches to the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont.

To paint a full sheet is a jump in scale over what I had been doing, which were closer to quarter sheets (11" x 15"). Since I live in Vermont and he was known for his hunting and fishing scenes of Vermont, I went about utilizing his inspiration.

I could have carried the picture further, but I do not think it would have made much of a difference. Sometimes it is hard to know when to stop. I thought the values in the picture were good in that there is depth to the image and a clarity of forms. I used Prussian blue for the water, and the rough paper brings out scratchy highlights on the surface of the stream, which I like. I used unstretched rough Arches 300 lb. watercolor paper for this picture.

The blues have it

(C) 2014 Dale DiMauro

This is a watercolor I did late last winter in my town. I like the variation in the sky and the trees. The sidewalk and light give warmth to the picture. This picture is 14" x 20" and the first I did using a Saunders Waterford watercolor block. This paper is like silk to work with. It is smooth to separate from the block with a palette knife which is not the case with an Arches block. They tend to tear a little if you are not careful. I think I brought optimism to this picture with colors I mixed because the days were getting longer and spring was coming after a long winter.

A Different Sort of Facebook

(C) 2014 Dale DiMauro

This is a little watercolor painting I did from a photograph. It is 7" x 10" done in an arches watercolor book among 25 portraits of men and women. 

I start by sketching the face right onto the watercolor paper with an HB pencil.  I develop the values enough in pencil so that the face has definition and shape. In considering the composition prior to painting I want to make the portrait as straightforward as possible. I try not to include anything, which would detract from the focal point - the person. In this case the clothing and how it falls around the head and shoulders is rather important. 

I wash in the background first by going over the whole sheet. In watercolor the paint dries much lighter than when it first goes on, so multiple applications are needed. I then build up the values of the skin while paying attention to the lips and eyes before addressing clothing last.

I have been told these little portraits capture a simple quality of the person without overworking the details. At this scale you can only include so much.  My art mentor Gerarde Doucette tells me these portraits remind him of Alice Neel portraits. I'm not sure. What do you think?

My Studio & Workspace

(C) 2014 Dale DiMauro

This is me in my workspace - a room in the front of our south-facing house. I realize most artists prefer the northern light which is even, not too bright and casts the least number of shadows. However, in our house the windows are small and high on the north wall. In the winter at times, I also work in the kitchen on our kitchen table.

I like to use 140 lb Arches watercolor blocks for smaller paintings because they are portable and usually won't buckle. These blocks are glued on all four sides with an opening in the middle of the back to slide a palette knife to separate the current sheet from the others.  For larger paintings I use 300 lb Arches or Saunders Waterford sheets of watercolor paper.

I prefer watercolor paint out of a tube, even though it comes in a pan format. I use Winsor Newton and Daniel Smith paints for their quality and reliability. I have a variety of brushes but primarily use six and they all are kolinsky sables which can be pricey. I particularly like the kolinsky sable rigger brush(size 6) which enables me to paint fine line work such as the rigging on boats. I use 'round' paintbrushes for most of my watercolors and a 1" flat for the early stages particularly in establishing the sky. I store any finished but unframed watercolors in a set of flat files I have in my office. These enable the paper to lay flat but out of the direct sun. The watercolor blocks available have a nice rugged cover sheet which folds over the paper to protect it until further use.

I will discuss other matters such as which palette to select and how to arrange your paint or at least what I do in upcoming blog posts.

The Grouse Hunter

(C) 2014 Dale DiMauro

This is my attempt to paint an Ogden Pleissner-type watercolor. I posed as a grouse hunter in a local cornfield in early spring. I had my wife take a photograph of me as a reference. There was a lot of bird activity in the undergrowth behind us chattering away while incessantly moving about. From a Peterson Field Guide of Eastern Birds with its flight patterns, I dug up the profile on grouses. Grouses are distinguished by their fan-like tails and preferred habitat of an understory of deciduous or mixed woodlands. I will mention that I am no hunter so any inaccuracies of anatomy would fall on me.

It was critical to get the barrel of the rifle portrayed in the right direction. Other than that I feel the colors of the distant hills, clouds and foreground are relatively representative of the feel of the moment.

Originally, I was inspired to paint an individual walking through a field with a dog while talking on a cell phone, a common everyday experience around here and in much of America. I wanted to use a full sheet (22" x 30") for the painting and paint the subject as it was with no extra fussing around. The painting above is 14"x 20". Perhaps one day I will paint the other scene.

Late Summer in Vermont

(C) 2014 Dale DiMauro

This is one of my first photographs taken of my paintings with a new digital camera and you can tell. There is a shadow line -- on both the bottom horizontal and the upper left vertical areas. It was a humid summer day when I took this, and the watercolor paper would not lay flat. I try to take photographs of my work outside on overcast days in reasonable weather, not too cold or too hot.  Of course, when there is too much moisture in the air, the paper does not cooperate well.

At some point, I intend to convert this 12" x 16" study into a full sheet painting (22" x 30"). I aim to improve the composition by bring a curving drive in from the right side of the picture, which would draw the eye in towards the barn, and remove the existing "ramrod" road, strengthening the focal point. Finally, I would push the road sign off center.  

What I really like about this painting is the texture of the wood, created by the variety of hues and shades.  The traditional barn red is absent from the walls but still appears in the warped tin roof. There is something very appealing about an old wooden barn.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Stop Sign

(C) 2014 Dale DiMauro

This is one of my more popular watercolor paintings. Around a year or so ago I did a smaller version- perhaps one would call it a 'study', 9" x 12". My artist mentor, Gerard Doucette encouraged me to paint it much larger to see how I would handle the picture at a greater scale. In its final version it is 18" x 24" and with the frame it really makes an impact.

However, I struggled with the background for awhile but ultimately painted a wash of sepia to unite and push back the distant tree line. This really made the 'red' in the painting come forward. In addition to the red, I like the blues and grays in the picture. To me they give temperature and direction. The noon shadows give further definition to the objects on the land. 

We are often too busy running around to take in what is truly right in front of us.

Watercolor Exhibition was a success!

My recent watercolor show at the Moore Free Library in Newfane ,Vermont was a success! Of the twenty-five paintings on exhibit, all in watercolor except one oil, two were sold and two larger pieces may end up being exhibited at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center in January. Also, there is interest in other paintings with inquiries about watercolor lessons and the possibility of a commission. People were intrigued with my landscape architecture portfolio which was on hand along with apple cider and doughnuts!

The opening reception had a dubious start as it started to rain and was rather chilly outside. However, as the morning unfolded more and more people came. I had the benefit of close proximity to the Newfane Heritage Festival which annually takes place on the second weekend in October.